_Paring the Nails, &c._ (Vol. ii., p. 511.; Vol. iii., p. 55.).--The
legend that I have heard in Devonshire differs from that quoted in Vol.
ii. It ran thus:
"Friday cut hair, Sunday cut horn,
Better that man had never been born."
The meaning given to it was, that cutting horn was a kind of _work_, and
therefore a breach of the Sabbath and that cutting hair on the Friday
was, like a hundred other things, thought unlucky on a Friday, from some
obscure reference to the great sacrifice of _Good Friday_. Sir Thomas
Browne shows that this was perhaps the continuation of ancient
superstition; and it is peculiarly remarkable that amongst the Romans
the _Dies Veneris_ (Friday) should have been thought unlucky for
_hair-cutting_. His reference to the crime of Manasses, "of observing
times," enters into no detail, and the text is evidently a general
condemnation of superstitious observances. I may as well here remark
that Browne's reference to Manasses, 1 Chron. xxxv., in my edition
(1686), is erroneous: it should be 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6.